Did MLB go too far with 'sticky stuff' crackdown? This former hitter thinks so.

Major League Baseball is finally going to enforce the rules that ban pitchers from using foreign substances to doctor the ball while on the mound, but some players think the new policy is an over-correction.

Using "sticky stuff" like pine tar as a grip-enhancement is an ancient practice in the game. In recent years, though, a large amount of pitchers have allegedly been applying some materials — such as the oft-mentioned Spider Tack — to their fingers that have really boosted their performance. Basically, the longer the ball sticks to a pitcher's fingers, the more it spins, and the more it spins, the more it moves, and trying to hit a small object that's traveling close to 100 mph before changing course sharply at the last moment is rather difficult.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.